


The Man Who Could Not Love Me

by Chryselis



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Anonymous Narrator, Denial, F/M, Heartbreak, Mentions of Slaine Troyard, OC used as plot device, Suffering, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chryselis/pseuds/Chryselis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A versian soldier recalls her relationship with Harklight, and how she came to understand that he could never love her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Could Not Love Me

 

_Once upon an orbit, I started a journey._

A part of me hoped that being a woman in the military would be a blessing, rather than a curse, despite what people said about working in an overwhelmingly male environment. I never had much success with men in my teens, and I not so secretly hoped that the limited competition would improve my chances, even if it meant skirting around bunk rules, overlapping shifts, and curfews. Well, I guess I did have some more noble motivations - you know what it’s like, dreaming of something ever since you were a child? Looking at the world around you and thinking “why is it like this? Can I do something about it?” Maybe not. But that’s how it was for me, growing up on Vers. Stomach always rumbling, parents always fighting. All this talk of the people on earth and why we have to suffer here like this. I always wanted to do something to help, and the only option for a girl of my background was the army. So I joined.

 

                _It took me out to the stars where I fell in love with space._

Being in space for the first time, I felt so tiny and stupid. But rather than being scared, it was like coming home to the greatest thing we know, so close to nothing but everything all at once (incidentally it also sparked in me an appreciation for poetry). The planets, the stars, the distant galaxies wrap themselves around humanity like a blanket of immutable existence. We do not know if they live, if they need, if they think, if they grieve. We are only what we know and there is an infinity that we can’t even begin to understand. If there’s anywhere you’ll truly feel alive, it’s standing on the brink of a vast emptiness above everything you used to think life was. Nothing is left but to either die – or explore and conquer.

 

                _And then I fell in love with the man who reminded me of my favourite place._

Despite my grand aspirations, the day to day reality of working in Count Saazbaum’s castle was pretty sobering. Of course, it turns out working in an overwhelmingly male environment isn’t easy, especially when said testosterone driven environment revolves around war. Not that women are necessarily better, it’s mostly that you become an obvious target for groups of cowards that huddle together. Rather than thinking of building our home back on Vers, or helping each other towards a brighter future, the military was a collection of arrogant brats and sad boot lickers. The more I learned, the more I realised how selfish we all were, and as we lower ranked soldiers began to hear rumours of greater schemes…  Well. Through it all, there was only ever one man I came into contact with who seemed to keep his integrity.

I first met Harklight while doing maintenance on the Herschel. We instantly hit it off, insofar as you can hit it off with a man like that – the best part of the shift was spent in silence, only broken by the odd comment or check. No jeering, no pointless banter, no competition: just solid, efficient hard work. It was exhilarating. I only noticed my heart was beating hard in my chest when we finished and he turned to me and said:

“Thanks for your hard work. I hope we can be paired up again soon.”

I can’t lie, I developed a total schoolgirl crush there and then.

Harklight was always looking to do more. While some people are simply content to do their job, he was wherever you looked, assisting, advising, and quietly surpassing the rest of us. At the same time, he was distant and independent, standing above all the group politics, the romances, and the petty jealousy. Harklight was one of the few people generally disliked among soldiers. Usually animosity was reserved for the higher ranks, a sort of “us versus them” mentality, but Harklight had a way of annoying and dismissing just about everyone he came into contact with. Why? I think he simply just didn’t care. There’s nothing people hate more than being ignored, and he ignored everyone and everything that didn’t live up to his high standards or help him forward his vision.

Like space, that only made me want him more. He was always so close, yet so far away. Always in control, never flinching, never yielding. Totally, utterly enchanting.

Meanwhile, I started getting that attention I’d first wanted from other men. Oh the irony, that wanting someone unattainable made me more desirable in the process. But I digress.

Over the years, I got to know him a little better. Each time we worked together, he would ask about another part of my life, and occasionally reward me with a few anecdotes of his own. When he started rising through the ranks, first to assist Count Saazbaum and later Lord Troyard, I was proud. Somehow he still made the time to drop by and see me too. Nothing had ever made me feel more special. It obviously wasn’t easy for him, especially after the take-over with Lord Troyard. Versians hated him, and anyone associated with him. Technically, Harklight was just doing his job, but that’s never good enough. I wasn’t fond of Lord Troyard – he always struck me as entirely suspicious and arrogant – but I respected him. Even more so because Harklight changed when he entered his service.

One day, there was a spark in his eyes, a (still controlled) spring in his step, a smile creeping onto the corners of his lips. It made my heart skip a beat, and I couldn’t help but interrupt our usual catch up with a more personal question:

“Harklight,” I asked tentatively, wary of prying, “do you like working for Lord Troyard?”

“You know it’s not a question of whether I like it or not,” came the typical reply.

“Ahaha, I know. I mean, do you really believe he’ll lead us out of this war?”

“Yes, I do.”

We pondered in solidary silence a few seconds, looking out to the kataphrakts resting in maintenance bay. Like anything good and quiet on the base, it didn’t last.

“OI BLONDIE, what on earth are you doing fraternising with the terran’s mutt?”

I think we both rolled our eyes in unison. It was one of my crew mates, the kind who thought that because I was a woman his duty was to impose his own views of the world on me for “my protection”. The kind that made passes at me every day just because I had a pair of breasts.

“Cut it out you brute. It’s none of your business who I spend my time with.”

“Yes it is, when it’s the worst type of scum. This guy doesn’t care about you, look at him. Went running to kiss the terran’s feet the moment he realised he could get a position out of it. Yet here you are still swooning over him, begging for any crumbs of affection he throws you. We’re just trying to look out for you.”

Harklight sat, motionless, as if the words bounced straight off his thick skin. But I was mad. Not only because this guy was being a total ass, but because he implied in front of Harklight that I was in love with him – which I was, but it was my place and mine alone to ever bring that up. In a fit of rage I ran towards him to slug him one, only for Harklight to stop me midway in a flash of lightning speed reflexes.

“Don’t let him get to you,” he said under his breath, “he doesn’t know any better.”

“God, you two are as bad as each other,” spat the antagonising soldier, “lording it over everyone else. Just fuck off.”

And he walked away. Just like that. Harklight’s charisma was just that imposing.

Sadly the worst was yet to come. Like exactly the type of person I didn’t want to be, I broke down and cried. Harklight just stood close to me and placed a reassuring hand on my arm, offering a matter of fact statement as sole form of comfort:

“You know there is no reason to let small men like that have an impact on your life.”

Obviously, that made me sob harder. It was just too much, being so close to him, ready to follow him to the end of the world, and knowing that I would never have a part in the great things he’d achieve. That was the breaking point.

“H-Harklight,” I somehow wheezed pathetically between cries, “it’s not that. I have to tell you, so I can move on.”

“What is it?”

“I’m in love with you.”

And then the planets watching over me somehow aligned themselves in a fluke of providence. Harklight pulled me into his arms, and through the streaming tears, kissed me for the first time.

 

                _For a while, I lost myself in him, the same way I could lose myself in the comforting emptiness I was happy not to comprehend._

Somehow, we ended up… Dating? In a relationship? In a series of stolen moments where we could be alone and confide in each other? It’s hard to explain, partly because I was on such a high for a few months, my memory is a bit fuzzy. Any recollection is filled with overwhelming emotion of being recognised and cared for by someone I’d always admired and idolised like the heavenly presence of the space we revolved in.

Despite his obsessive dedication to his own post, he started frequently deviating from routine and conducting surprise “checks” on the teams I was on, asking for “reports” so we could sneak away and enjoy each other for a few minutes. At first, his kisses were sweet and soft, but I soon realised that he was a man of pent up emotion. He gradually became rougher, more desperate, as if being with me allowed him to express things he’d always kept under the surface. He marked me repeatedly, so much so that I became weary of changing around my bunkmates. Love bites covered my neck, my arms, and my back. He pushed me up against walls, almost crushing me with his passion and presence. He never asked for anything, and we rarely spoke about where things were going between us. There was a mutual acknowledgment of how precarious our situation was, even if I didn’t quite realise at the time, and it was easier to leave things unspoken.

 

_But really, what can you ever hope to be to something, someone, you don’t understand?_

Soon though, I had to admit that Harklight was not mine to love. In the same way that space crushes and suffocates the man who tries to conquer her, we could only lead each other down a path to nothing. It hit me after a few attempts to take our relationship further, to make arrangements for somewhere we could spend the night together. Whereas before he had always made exceptions for me, I became the target for excuses. Lord Troyard this, Lord Troyard that. Things he couldn’t discuss, things I “wouldn’t understand”.

At some point, I managed to convince him to stay with me in a disused dorm. Everything about him changed, words, touch, gazes became painfully furtive and needy. I tried to ask him what he wanted, what he desired, but each time he would push me back and restrain me, and continue to run his hands over my body, delaying the moment I desperately hoped would come as if his mind and soul were somewhere else. I wondered about what important task could be distracting him, what political ploys he might be overseeing, what might be making him anxious in his work.

And then I realised what I didn’t understand.

 

_Truly, if I was a single insignificant life looking out to great unknown, he was the frozen void itself looking to be filled with the brightest blazing star._

I realised that Harklight looked at Lord Troyard the same way I looked at the stars, and everything clicked into place.

I pulled away, tears welling up in my eyes. No words were necessary, he could see on my face that I knew. And so, I asked the question that I should’ve asked a long time ago:

“Harklight, am I just a distraction to you?”

He looked at me in shock, a wave of pity and sadness washing over his usually guarded face.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can give you what you need from me.”

It was too painful. Funnily enough, I wasn’t even upset myself. It just seemed so obvious, so tragic, so hopeless.  

“Can you at least be honest with me?”

“I’m not the right man for you, that’s all there is to say. I’m sorry I let things go on this long.”

I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t. I just wanted to know, I wanted him to admit it to himself.

“Harklight… If there’s anyone you should be able to confide in, it’s me. I can’t hate you for this.”

Harklight simply stared at the ground, and all I could hear was his breathing. In my mind though, I felt like I could hear his heart hammering through his chest.

“Remember what you said about me when we first kissed?”

“Yes… I told you I admired your determination to chase the unobtainable.”

“We’re the same, aren’t we?”

More silence.

“Harklight… Your chase for the unobtainable… Is it Slaine Troyard?”

He collapsed to his knees, like I had when I first confessed my love to him. Except he said nothing, just clasped his chest as if he wanted to rip his heart out, silent choked sobs saying more than any open confession ever could. The reality of his feelings was just too hard to bear. I knelt next to him and held his head against my chest, stroking his hair softly, finally understanding the numbness that comes hand in hand with giving yourself to space. He clung to me for god knows how long, until he let out a muffled admission:

“I’m sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a conversation with Yasumii on how many ways we can make Harklight suffer. Prompt was "what if Harklight used another relationship to deal with his unrequited love for Slaine". Being Harklight is such eternal suffering that other people must suffer too. More prompts welcome.
> 
> Writing a woman is weird.
> 
> Here is my cheesy poem in one go if anyone is interested:
> 
> Once upon an orbit, I started a journey.  
> It took me out to the stars where I fell in love with space.  
> And then I fell in love with the man who reminded me of my favourite place.  
> For a while, I lost myself in him, the same way I could lose myself  
> in the comforting emptiness  
> I was happy not to comprehend.  
> But really, what can you ever hope to be to something, someone, you don’t understand?  
> Truly, if I was a single insignificant life looking out to great unknown,  
> he was the frozen void itself  
> looking to be filled with the brightest blazing star.


End file.
